In late August, Prince Harry shocked the British media by turning up at Robert Fellowes’ funeral in Norfolk. Fellowes was married to Lady Jane Spencer, Harry’s aunt. Sources had previously indicated that Harry would not fly in for the funeral, and no one learned about Harry’s arrival until the day after the funeral. Harry reportedly stayed at Althorp, the Spencer family’s estate, with his uncle Charles, the Earl Spencer. I assumed that Harry used the visit to also spend some time at his mother’s grave – Diana is buried at Althorp, and Harry was last there in 2022, when he took Meghan. Now the Daily Beast has confirmation of that, only they’re presenting it in the grossest way possible.
Prince Harry visited his mother Princess Diana’s grave when he was staying at her ancestral home in the U.K. last week, The Daily Beast has been told by a friend and neighbor of Diana’s brother, the 9th Earl, Charles Spencer.
The gesture will cement a perception that Harry wishes to reinforce his identity as Diana’s son, rather than continuing to be defined by his exhausting feud with his brother, Prince William.
The grave is on a small island in a lake on the magnificent Althorp Estate in Northamptonshire. It was located in this isolated and hard to reach location to deter ghouls and sightseers, and has always been reached via a small rowing boat. In May, Earl Spencer revealed he had been given new handcrafted wooden boat by a friend to reach the island.
The Spencer friend told The Daily Beast: “Harry visited the grave when he was in Althorp. It’s a very special place for all the family but especially Harry. It was a significant part of his motivation for staying there.” They were not willing to divulge further details of Harry’s visit. Harry’s office declined to comment to The Daily Beast. However, sources in Harry’s camp did tell US magazine People that he had stayed at Althorp.
The funeral of Fellowes was previously described to The Daily Beast as a “a huge gathering of the Spencer clan.” Intriguingly, it seems that the service might have been delayed to enable Harry to attend. Fellowes’ died on 29 July and the funeral took place on August 28. Harry is required to give 28 days notice to U.K. police in order to receive police protection when visiting the U.K.
CB and I talked about the issue of police protection in this week’s Gossip with Celebitchy podcast – my gut tells me that Harry did NOT give 28-days notice to the Windsors or the Met Police for his visit. It feels like the cops or the Windsors would have leaked his plans if he gave them any notice. I think this was some kind of maneuver by Harry, to experiment with how it would go if he went to the UK with just his private security and stayed at Althorp rather than a hotel. I’ll just say that the reaction from the Windsors after Harry’s visit kind of showed that they had no idea that he was in the country.
As for “The gesture will cement a perception that Harry wishes to reinforce his identity as Diana’s son, rather than continuing to be defined by his exhausting feud with his brother” – Harry has always made regular visits to Althorp to visit his mother’s grave, and he’s always nurtured his relationships with the Spencers. He is his mother’s son and he’s more of a Spencer than a Windsor, and everyone knows that. William is the one who’s mad that he can’t claim to be “Diana’s son” while simultaneously lying about his mother and calling her paranoid.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.